Gingrich mocks Romney for speaking French

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich may have backtracked from a recent campaign ad attacking Romney as a job-killer during his tenure at Bain Capital, but he’s still accusing him of another act that may nettle some conservatives: speaking French.

In a web ad titled “The French Connection,” a deep-voiced narrator describes Romney as a liberal governor who authored government-mandated health care and raised taxes in his state of Massachusetts but who now masquerades as a conservative.

The narrator says, “Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney, he’ll say anything to win — anything. And just like John Kerry, he speaks French.”

The ad then cuts to a video of Democratic Senator John Kerry saying haltingly, in French, “Let the good times roll!”

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry was criticized for his connections to France, where he spent summers during his childhood. Romney, too, lived in France, where he served as a missionary for more than two years in the 1960s.

The ad closes with indisputable proof that Romney is Francophone–a shot from a video of Romney speaking in French to volunteers for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, which he helped organize. He says, in French, “Hello, my name is Mitt Romney.”